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Phone:  801-534-7354
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"As a family law lawyer my creed is: 'Do no harm.' The 'win at all costs' mentality can often hurt rather than help if, as lawyers, we fail to appreciate our clients short and long term needs. Families with children must work together for years after the divorce is completed and the lawyers are no longer involved. That makes the long term perspective critical when advising and assisting clients through the trauma created by divorce. My goal is to help my clients achieve their best outcome by considering the divorce case in the context of their lives and not their lives in the context of the divorce."

Lori W. Nelson focuses her practice primarily in the area of complex financial family law cases. Lori represents individuals in every aspect of a case, including trials, evidentiary hearings, mediation, and collaborative cases. Her cases have covered every aspect of family law, including: divorce; modifications; adoptions; child support; and, complicated custody cases involving mental health issues. Those cases have also involved, among other things: contract interpretation; the intersection of corporate law and family law; probate law; intellectual property; real property law; water law; and, partnership law.

Lori was reelected to a three-year term (2008-2011) as a Bar Commissioner for the Utah State Bar for the Third Division. She has served on the Bar Commission Executive Committee for all but the first year of her service.  Lori has been elected as the Bar Commission’s representative on the Utah State Court’s Judicial Council after having served several years as the co-chair of the Utah State Bar Governmental Relations committee and the legislative liaison for the Family Law Section. She is the past chair of the Family Law Section Executive Committee and has served as a member of the Judicial Council Standing Committee on Children and Family Law since its inception in April 2000. Lori was elected to serve a three-year term (2008-2011) on the ABA Family Law Section Council representing Region 5, which covers the states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. She was named Family Law Lawyer of the year 2001-2002. She has been named one of Utah’s Legal Elite by Utah Business magazine each year from 2006 to 2010. She has also been named in the 2007-2010 editions of Mountain States Super Lawyers.  She also sits on the board of Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake.

Lori is a trained mediator with extensive mediation experience. Lori received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Utah in 1992, during which time she was a member of the National Moot Court Team, and a regional semi finalist. As a third year representative of the Women’s Law Caucus, Lori organized the first Women’s Law Caucus scholarship lecture with a panel who presented the Gender and Justice Task Force Report. Lori received her Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy from the University of Utah in 1987.

Lori loves cooking, photography, fishing, hiking, cooking, reading, Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, and cooking, among other things.